Tag Archives: Colston Hall

Where’s the audience for Haydn?

Bristol Choral Society’s latest concert was Haydn’s Creation in Colston Hall. We were joined by soloists Helen-Jane Howells, Paul Badley and David Ireland and accompanied by the Bristol Ensemble (I was particularly impressed by their flutes warbling and trilling their … Continue reading

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‘a passionate and sensitive interpretation’

The following Saturday I returned to another work I performed earlier this autumn, The Dream of Gerontius in Colston Hall. Again we had new soloists (ours were Mark Padmore, Susan Bickley and David Stout), conductor (Adrian Partington) and orchestra (Bournemouth … Continue reading

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The Kinshasa band

The Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra, founded 20 years ago, visited the UK for a four-concert tour. We were invited to join them for the final concert in Bristol, in the finale of Beethoven 9. They brought their own strong choir with … Continue reading

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Performing the Glagolitic Mass

@bristolchoral We gave two performances of the Mass on successive nights, the first in Colston Hall, the second in the Royal Festival Hall. This marked my Royal Festival Hall début! I have a principle of not evaluating here concerts that … Continue reading

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Why I’m like Lohengrin

There was a mildly embarrassing moment at the beginning of our opera gala concert last weekend: as usual, we were all lined up in rows to process on and the names of those on the end of each row (including … Continue reading

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Remembering the Messiah again

The annual memorised performance of Messiah came round again. I had been worried that I would be back to square one with learning this, but some of the harder choruses to memorise, such as All we like sheep, fell into … Continue reading

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The War Requiem in Bristol

The second performance of the War Requiem came a week later in Colston Hall. We were large forces and disposed rather differently from when I sang the work there before. I was positioned round the side of the choir with … Continue reading

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Freude!

#colstonhall @bristolchoral I have come round a bit to Beethoven 9 since I last sang it, quite a few years ago. It was the first piece I ever sang with a full orchestra, a performance in Oxford Town Hall when … Continue reading

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My part in a busy choral weekend

@BristolChoral Bristol was saturated with choral concerts over the weekend of 23-24 March. On Sunday night Colston Hall hosted a performance of Mahler 8. On Saturday there were concerts by the Bristol Phoenix Choir, Exultate Singers, and the one I … Continue reading

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singing Messiah to 3,000

Strictly speaking, I didn’t do this, because the audience was split between the ‘mini-Messiah‘ in the afternoon and a full performance (with a few cuts) in the evening. But singing to a nearly-full Colston Hall was a change from the … Continue reading

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a colossal nightingale

This was Heine’s description of Berlioz and I can’t improve on it, so I’m borrowing it for the title of this post. A few years ago I learnt some of Les nuits d’été, including Le spectre de la rose. The … Continue reading

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Requiem (2): Britten

On November 9th I sang in Britten’s War Requiem for the first time in the Colston Hall, Bristol. (A first for my setting foot in the Colston Hall, too!) This was the second of a pair of performances with many … Continue reading

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